John Cage

"When you start working on something, don't think, just do it."

"The smallest sound carries the furthest."

"We have more to learn from conflict than from agreement."

"The radio is in the air all around us. Just turn the dial."

"Most people work hard at their job and spend the rest of the time watching television."

"Spend more time with people who are older than you."

"Love is not calculated; it is spontaneous."

"Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail. There's only make."

"If someone says 'Can you do this?' you say 'Yes' and you figure out how to do it later."

"You don't have to be special to be special."

"The laws of nature are the canvas God laid down on which he painted his masterpiece."

"I feel that nothing that I have said was serious or that I am now saying is serious."

"Theater takes place all the time, wherever one is."

"The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is."

"To understand something, we must learn to love it."

"Once one opens a door, one finds it is really a partition and one goes through to another door."

"A meal is not less a meal because it is eaten alone."

"Discipline is freedom."

"In our daily lives, we do not think about making music."

"We need the sounds of nature. Without them, we are lost."

"Don't think that there is a connection between the behavior of the subject and the behavior of the object."

"The same activity can be a serious activity for one person and a recreational activity for another."

"Life is like a game of chess. Think several moves ahead."

"The purpose of this music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences."

"People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals."

"We are afraid to be ourselves."

"I don't sit around thinking that I am smart or not smart."

"We cannot have anything we can name be a prerequisite for anything else."

"The East has a set of ideas, the West another. Both are limited."

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."